Isn't Negative SEO Illegal?

[bartosimpsonio]

If it were illegal, then all the SEOs who tried but ended up fucking their clients' rankings would be in jail LOL.

All you gotta say is "your honor I was doing positive SEO but it ended up being negative!".

LOL. Lock him up.

 

[Chavalalhazman]

unless the guy who pulls off the neg SEO is an utter fucktard.

Aren't they just that by definition?

 

[Chavalalhazman]

If it were illegal, then all the SEOs who tried but ended up fucking their clients' rankings would be in jail LOL.

All you gotta say is "your honor I was doing positive SEO but it ended up being negative!".

LOL. Lock him up.

There has been cases of SEO companies being taken to court by ex-clients. http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2014/05/advertiser-may-have-claims-against-seo-firm-using-undisclosed-spammy-practices.htm

The action is based on the fact that, at the time that the Defendants were promoting this marketing scheme to the Victim Firms, they knew that the techniques they proposed to use were in violation of the guidelines already well-established and published by Google; knew that Google was moving rapidly to crack down on violators; knew that use of these techniques would not only fail to enhance the likelihood that the Victim Firms would rise in Google’s rankings but would actually be downgraded to the point where the websites being used by the Victim Firms would become “contaminated” for search engine purposes; knew that they intended to use automated programs rather than direct personal effort to create the appearance that links to the Victim Firms webpages (the key to rising in search engine rankings) were being generated in the numbers represented; and knew that they intended to cloak their schemes in allegations of “trade secrets” to avoid the balance of the scheme from coming to light.

 

[Nargil]

If it were illegal, then all the SEOs who tried but ended up fucking their clients' rankings would be in jail LOL.

All you gotta say is "your honor I was doing positive SEO but it ended up being negative!".

LOL. Lock him up.

I know couple of people who took SEO companies to court and won. Here in Europe. However, the damage was unintentional and merely caused by neglect. Plus, damage was small. If it were intentional and on bigger scale, it could be a jail time too, however, it would be problematic ot prove as I explained earlier.

Aren't they just that by definition?

Yup.

 

[Chavalalhazman]

Here is the article about the legality of negative seo https://www.rebootonline.com/blog/is-negative-seo-illegal/

 

[CyberHour]

How can it possibly not exist? If SEO exists and algo updates exist, and websites dropping in rankings exist, then neg Seo exists.

If earth is flat, flat earth map exist, and idiots to believe it exist, then the earth is flat.

What I said is that most of the times, the so called "negative seo" actually do the opposite. Just placing competitor url in random spam directories or porn sites wont really harm his ranking.

Over doing "positive SEO" wishing that some day he will get penalized don
t worth the money and time since there is no guarantee that google will flag the website or will rank it higher.

If we want to talk about RANK dropping then we should gain access over the website content which is not negative seo but hacking which is ILLEGAL .

 

[mickyfu]

https://www.blackhatworld.com/http:/#

What I said is that most of the times, the so called "negative seo" actually do the opposite. Just placing competitor url in random spam directories or porn sites wont really harm his ranking.

Over doing "positive SEO" wishing that some day he will get penalized don
t worth the money and time since there is no guarantee that google will flag the website or will rank it higher.

If we want to talk about RANK dropping then we should gain access over the website content which is not negative seo but hacking which is ILLEGAL .

I have no idea at all when Negative SEO is mentioned people automatically jump to 1000s of backlinks. Back links are not the be all and end all of Neg SEO, far from it.

 

[Cshark]

It's more of a question of ethics than legality. Internet is still free and you should do what you want, provided your business ethics approves of your actions. In this case the company you're talking about feels that neg seo is the best way to use their resources to make money.

Let's focus on our own businesses, shall we?

 

[firstnamelastname]

listen bro, if they want you bad enough, they will make up the right charges to stick. even if you're standing on the street minding your own business, a cop can say you're there illegally and you need to move on. happened to me, public sidewalk.

some of you are not even answering the op's orignial question. the op is asking whether negative seo is illegal, as in is it a crime? not whether you can be sued in civil court. of course you can be sued in civil court for ruining somebody's business (and of course, it would be hard to track the responsible parties due to proxies and vpns and all that)

 

[Nargil]

listen bro, if they want you bad enough, they will make up the right charges to stick. even if you're standing on the street minding your own business, a cop can say you're there illegally and you need to move on. happened to me, public sidewalk.

some of you are not even answering the op's orignial question. the op is asking whether negative seo is illegal, as in is it a crime? not whether you can be sued in civil court. of course you can be sued in civil court for ruining somebody's business (and of course, it would be hard to track the responsible parties due to proxies and vpns and all that)

Even a civil action is based on the fact, that the deed was illegal. If you can be sued for something = illegal. So the OP got exact answer he wanted, regarding both civil and criminal courts.

 

[rickydzine]

Negative 'seo' isn't illegal. "SEO" is essentially a way to game an independent resource, think of it like, parking 4 of your cars on a private property so others are forced to use 'paid parking' it's not illegal because it's a private resource. If you were to spread rumors and ruin the reputation of a company by slander then you might have a case. HOWEVER, a big thing we miss, spamming, spamming is illegal .

 

[chokolatai]

I dont think there is any such law, if there is, then Google would be the ones to blame for letting them do what they are doing.

 

[adityaradea]

Yes definitely illegal. You can be fined up to $250,000 and 10 years in prison.

i agree that that is definitely illegal. thanks for your info, liked this post

 

[jazzc]

Even a civil action is based on the fact, that the deed was illegal. If you can be sued for something = illegal.

That's not how the judicial system works. You can get sued for anything at any time, there's no bar to entry.

 

[Nargil]

That's not how the judicial system works. You can get sued for anything at any time, there's no bar to entry.

Yes you can, but if it's an utter nonsense, it will get denied by court before you even get a notification. It has to have a basis in law codes and there has to be at least some chance, that the deed was indeed illegal. Otherwise, the claim will be denied immediatelly. It works the same way in common law systems as far as I know.

With that statement I worked with a premise, that what you did was actually illegal. It's point was to explain difference between illegality and criminality. Nothing more. I can edit it to "If you can be successfully sued" etc.

 

[jazzc]

It has to have a basis in law codes and there has to be at least some chance, that the deed was indeed illegal.

That's why there exist lawyers. They wrap it up in a plausible way based on wide-range laws and off it goes.

 

[Nargil]

That's why there exist lawyers. They wrap it up in a plausible way based on wide-range laws and off it goes.

I am one of them. By trade at least -

And that's what good lawyers are for, yep. Easier in US with jury system, where all you need is to just be convincing, rather than provide some bulletproof arguments and proofs.

 

[MikeyMikey13]

I'm pretty sure that purposely ruining someone's business is not legal.

Google won the case when someone tried to sue for loss of earnings during ge penguin update.

I'm pretty sure that can be applied as direct precendent in court.

I mean think about it, is it the bad links or the algo that causes the loss of earnings?

 

[Nargil]

Google won the case when someone tried to sue for loss of earnings during ge penguin update.

I'm pretty sure that can be applied as direct precendent in court.

I mean think about it, is it the bad links or the algo that causes the loss of earnings?

Not really. That action against Google is different. First of all, there was not any deliberate intention to damage websites that are in compliance with Google's ToS. It was merely a colateral when company was trying to "improve" the search engine. Plus, they can prove anytime, even make that up, that someone did some SEO, which is against their ToS and thus they are not liable for any damage.

On the other hand, negative SEO is deliberately sabotaging someone elses business as a third party.

I will use this comparison:

You are driving in the winter through town, but there was an ice on road and due to that you hit the pole. You can sue the town for not cleaning the ice (Google), but they will tell you that you should have driven more carefully in these conditions and they did as much as they could. Thus not held liable for the damages.
While the other case is like simply driving through a town in summer, speeding and hitting someone's car. Your action was intentionally illegal (speeding) and you caused damage to the third party. The fact that it was done on the road that belongs to the town (Google) does not matter.

Tad farfetched, but the analogies aren't half bad if I might say so! Though in the second one, it would be better if you deliberately hit someone, but hey, it's an example.

PS: Mourinho sucks.

 

[MikeyMikey13]

Not really. That action against Google is different. First of all, there was not any deliberate intention to damage websites that are in compliance with Google's ToS. It was merely a colateral when company was trying to "improve" the search engine. Plus, they can prove anytime, even make that up, that someone did some SEO, which is against their ToS and thus they are not liable for any damage.

On the other hand, negative SEO is deliberately sabotaging someone elses business as a third party.

I will use this comparison:

You are driving in the winter through town, but there was an ice on road and due to that you hit the pole. You can sue the town for not cleaning the ice (Google), but they will tell you that you should have driven more carefully in these conditions and they did as much as they could. Thus not held liable for the damages.
While the other case is like simply driving through a town in summer, speeding and hitting someone's car. Your action was intentionally illegal (speeding) and you caused damage to the third party. The fact that it was done on the road that belongs to the town (Google) does not matter.

Tad farfetched, but the analogies aren't half bad if I might say so! Though in the second one, it would be better if you deliberately hit someone, but hey, it's an example.

PS: Mourinho sucks.

Again, what crime have you committed? There has to be a crime, in the UK nothing criminally (or civil) covers deliberating attacks on the search engine.
Computer misuse Act 1990 in the UK only covers unauthorized access, if I build 5000 links to your site, that isn't unauthorized access, thus not illegal. Simple as that.
Civil claim could possibly be causing loss by unlawful means, but again, it ISNT unlawful.

It is nice using all these analogies as SEOs, but a judge isn't going to allow this.
There is something called the floodgate effect in law. Every SEO and his brother will have a claim for negative SEO, which will be hard to understand and prove.

Also, here is an interesting idea. Have you tried finding a case where someone has been either found criminally or civilly liable for negative seo?